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Viana To Fill Several Roles

By: Adam Jardy

The Columbus Dispatch - January 28, 2013 11:30 PM

There will be more in Tuesday’s paper, but one of the main things that attracted the Crew to
Agustin Viana was his versatility

“I think he’s a player who can play a couple of positions,” technical director Brian Bliss said.
“That’s one of the reasons we’re attracted to him. He can play left back, he can play a little bit
of left midfield, he can play internally as a midfielder, kind of like a box-to-box guy. That’s
where he’s been playing most recently.”

When the Crew first started scouting him in October, 2010, Viana was primarily playing left back
in Italy. The Crew signed Tyson Wahl during the offseason to shore up the left back position but
said it was still looking for further talent at the position.

“Tyson can be a starter as a left back, he can be a starter as a left center back,” Bliss said. “
If Viana ends up being somebody who plays internally or in the midfield then Tyson Wahl is our
left back. I think that allows us some flexibility, which is a good thing, and all of them have
good backgrounds.

“He can play a number of spots. It will all depend on where we feel we need to help or where he
can help us best. We’ll leave that up to (head coach) Robert (Warzycha) as to where to deploy him.”&
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After the Crew parted ways with midfielder Milovan Mirosevic, the front office spoke of having
resources available to find a replacement who can make things happen in the midfield. Signing Viana
at least temporarily lessens that need, Bliss said.

“It takes some pressure off of us at least in the short term because we know he can get up and
down the field,” he said. “He’s got long strides and covers a lot of ground and has a good engine,
so we know based on what we’ve seen in the last half-season with his club that he can get up and
down the field in the middle of the park as a box-to-box guy. He can do some of the things that
Milo did. He may do them a little differently, but in terms of covering ground and going from box
to box he can do those things that Milo did.”

Up nextThe Crew sits at 22 players under contract not including Dilly Duka and Aaron Horton. Viana’s
signing could be the continuation of a busy period for the Crew, which also signed defender Glauber
last week.

“We’re working on another deal for another player that we’re confident will get done in terms of
the paperwork and all that,” Bliss said. “That would be a third guy. If we can make this deal
happen trade-wise that involves Dilly, there’s four players over the last six or seven days that
make our roster that much better.”

The much-discussed Duka trade is still in a holding pattern, but not one that has much to do
with the Crew.

“The (trade talks) are still in the works with the same team,” Bliss said. “I’m not trying to
absolve us from anything, but it’s really not a matter of us anymore it’s a matter of the player,
his agent and the league figuring out a new contractual agreement that the acquiring club can
better deal with.”

There remains no final deadline for the deal, but Bliss said that at some point it could be
decided to recall Duka to Columbus and start training with the Crew.

“(Duka) is sitting back in New Jersey wondering where his next move might be and we’re training
and every team in the league is training and he’s not part of it, so it’s frustrating for him as
well,” Bliss said. “At the end of the day, it’s really out of our hands in terms of how it all
comes together. Hopefully everybody can think through it and cooler heads prevail and everybody’s
happy at the end but right now it’s kind of out of our hands.”

Glauber has a passport and visa and is expected to arrive once a plane ticket is finalized.

Forward Aaron Horton remains with FK Sarajevo in Bosnia.

“I just exchanged a text message with the agent,” Bliss said. “He seems to be doing OK in terms
of training and getting along and all that, but I haven’t heard anything more than that, that they
want to do a deal or anything like that.”

Bliss said the time is approaching for Sarajevo to decide if it wants to keep Horton or send him
back to the Crew.

With a number of trialists in camp including Warzycha’s son, Konrad, and several roster moves
still in the works, how many spots are trialists fighting for?

The answer is not many.

“If we made the assumption that the Dilly deal works, and the player that we’re talking about
gets papers and all that in, and you sign a couple of your draft picks you’ve only really got one,
maybe two spots open, and one of those would have to be an apprentice,” he said.